This application claims the priority benefit of Taiwan application serial no. 89110951, filed on Jun. 5, 2000.
1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to personal computers and more particularly to a device incorporating a plurality of computer communication ports adapted for applications.
2. Description of Related Art
A conventional computer 100 is shown in FIGS. 1a and 1b. On the front side of the housing 10 of computer 100, there are provided a plurality of slots 1, 2, 3 and 4 for 5.25xe2x80x3 CD-ROM, 3.5xe2x80x3 floppy disk drive and others, a plurality of indication lamps 5 for indicating power, hard disk drive and others, and a plurality of buttons 6 for activating power and others. As shown in FIG. 1b, on the rear side of computer 100 there are provided a power socket 7, a communication port assembly 8, and an adapter port assembly 9. Communication port assembly 8 includes a variety of communication ports such as parallel port 81, universal serial bus (USB) port 82, a phone jack, a line-in, a line-out and a micro-in (indicated by numeral 83 as a whole), a keyboard port 84, and a mouse port 85. Adapter port assembly 9 includes serial ports 91 and 92. Furthermore, there is another adapter VGA port (not shown) for connecting to a monitor.
However this is inconvenient for a user to connect a peripheral device to computer 100 because communication port assembly 8 is located on the rear. For example, the user has to plug a digital camera or digital camcorder to the communication port assembly 8 when such need arises. Also, it is usually for user to unplug the digital camera or digital camcorder when the job is done. In view of the above, it will contradict the trend and convenience of plug-and-play function.
Another conventional computer 200 shown in FIG. 2 is proposed to overcome the drawback of the conventional computer 100 shown in FIGS. 1a and 1b. On the front side of housing 20 of computer 200, there are provided slots 21 and 22, indication lamps 23, buttons 24, serial port 25, USB port 26 and etc. This may facilitate plugging a peripheral device into the front side of computer 200. However, such a design is still unsatisfactory because some people may feel that the number of communication ports is not sufficient, while some may view such implementation as being redundant. Further, the front surface of housing 20 may be too crowded due to the additional provision of communication ports. Furthermore, the number and types of communication ports are predetermined while manufacturing the housing, resulting in less adaptability. This is disadvantageous for user selection, future expansion, and compatibility etc. Thus, improvements still exist.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a communication port box removably mounted in a slot on the front side of a computer, including a front panel of circuit board having a variety of communication ports; a plurality of rear cables such as flat ribbon cable being electrically connected between the communication ports and a plurality of connectors on the motherboard; and an engagement section mounted with the front panel removably engaged to the slot of a computer housing. By utilizing this, the plugging/unplugging of a peripheral device to the communication port device is made easy. Further, it is adaptable for user customization without altering the design of the computer housing.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a computer system including a housing, a motherboard and a communication port device which is removably mounted in one of the slots formed on the front side of the housing. The motherboard is furnished inside the housing, which includes a plurality of first communication ports located on the rear side of the housing, and a plurality of connectors. The communication port device includes a variety of second communication ports on a front panel thereof, a plurality of rear cables being electrically connected between the second communication ports and the connectors on the motherboard.
In one aspect of the present invention, the communication port can be a serial port, a USB port, an audio input port, an audio output port, a video input port, a video output port, or an IEEE 1394 port.
In another aspect, there is an indicator such as an LED or a seven-segment indicator on the front panel for showing the information of the computer system. A plurality of buttons are also included on the front panel to select or switch different detecting functions such as detections of CPU frequency, temperature or voltage, rotation speed of a fan, system diagnosis and etc.